Rank your favorite TMNT continuities, most to least liked

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

I dunno, it's the weekend, I'm bored and I wanna talk Turtle. My favorites are at the top:

1) Archie's TMNT Adventures: This got REALLY dark at times. It had a bunch of heavy themes related to religion, historical events (including the infamous issue where the boys are stuck in the past and Raph punches Hitler), and environmental messages out the wazoo (my favorite being a 48-page special where the Turtles meet this Greenpeace themed superhero team, and there's a giant oily duck trying to pollute the oceans and Splinter just tearfully glares at him like "WHY?" It's the funniest thing ever.), but I still have a soft spot for it. Ninjara was a good foil for Raph, hopefully she'll show up in the new show.

2) The Nickelodeon Turtles: Probably my favorite TMNT show now. Great character designs (Donnie's expressions are the cutest, look at his little gap teeth!), and a Teen Titans style blend of epic stories with gags that don't feel forced.

3) The 1990 TMNT Movie: For six-year-old Clash and other kids my age, this was THE event. It still holds up well today, it's a near perfect adaption of the basic Mirage plot and characterizations. The drama/affection between Leo and Raph adds a lot.

4) The Mirage Comics: I sorta enjoy both them and the 90 film about the same, they achieve similar goals for me.

5) The 2003/Fox Kids Turtles: I'm still catching up on episodes of this I may have missed. This show probably has the coolest version of Baxter to date.

6) The 1987/Syndicated/CBS Turtles: It's arguably the most well known Turtle show because of so many people growing up with it. I like the show overall, but man did a number of later season episodes suck. Not just in a "this makes no sense" way, I just remember being bored because a lot of the plots de-evolved into cliched cartoon tropes. Ok, we got the shrinking episode. Now there's the body swap episode. Now they gotta deal with a bratty rich kid in a "The Toy" ripoff. They even did the "misdiagnosis that a character is going to die soon" angle, and this was the time when I fell out of the franchise until the 2k3 Turtles premiered.

7) The Secret Of The Ooze: Maybe the goofiest Turtle movie. I mean at one point, the Shredder is going to drop them into a trap and the gang's still making jokes until Splinter saves them. Ninja Rap is still awesome, but you can tell they were trying to take a "lighter and softer" approach.

8) TMNT 2007 (the CGI movie): I don't really dislike this film, but it's a jumbled mess. There's too many plots colliding at once. There's not enough time to expand on how the brothers were initially separated thanks to how overwritten the stuff with Max Winters and the ancient monsters is. Raph's alter-ego thing is fine, but that story could be its own script.

9) TMNT 2014 (BayTurtles, Liebesman Turtles): It's a bad movie, but more "funny bad" than anything. You can't help but laugh at the choices they made, like Splinter having an anaconda tail or Vernon being brave.

10) TMNT III (the one where they're in ancient Japan) This film has always just kinda bored me. It's probably the most forgettable Turtle flick.

11) Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation: I could only get through a couple of episodes of this. The costumes look like ass, the action is meh and the stuff with Venus is just creepy.

....so yeah, I'm quite the Turtle nerd. Not as much as Black Nerd, despite also being a nerd. And black.

[Joe Neglia]

I missed out on a bunch of them, honestly, and I'm not sure I can rank the ones I am more aware of, but my thoughts on them at least:

The Mirage originals - I got a couple of issues of them in a trade with a neighbor when I was a kid (before the franchise took off). I didn't care much for them then. Not real sure I like them any more now.

The original cartoon series - Was a huge fan of this at the time, but it doesn't really hold up now in a lot of ways. I see a lot of budget-cutting in it I hadn't previously. Great Shredder and Krang, though, and definitely the definitive Michaelangelo.

The 90s movies - Still love the first one (though to be fair, a lot of that is due to my man-love for Elias Koteas' Casey Jones). The second one had it's moments (I'm a Tokka fan, sue me). The third one...even with Casey in it, just couldn't get through it.

The Archie comics - Some really great stuff. Loved how they were using a lot of the toy characters I wasn't seeing elsewhere, and adding new characters as well.

The Image comics era - LOVED the team-ups with Savage Dragon, but man, their solo series was...something.

The Michael Bay films - wasn't too keen on the first film, honestly. Trailer for the new one though looks extremely promising.

Turtles Forever - not real sure which continuity to consider this, given the plot, but while it's the only real exposure I've had to post original cartoon TMNT, it is really well-done.

The original Playmates toyline - I sorta consider this its own continuity, as very few of the others included all of the characters from it, and less in the forms they took on here. This is still hands-down my favorite. Just great designs and ideas all the way through, minus all of the cash-grab "variant" turtle figures.

[Mozenrath]

The 1990 movie is so damn good. I'd even say it's one of the better superhero films I've seen. That said, they did do a LOT of things right with the special effects, costuming, etc, but if you want to laugh, look at when Raphael throws his sai at a lightbulb in one scene. It is way off mark. I am having difficulty finding the clip, but it's where April gets the sai she later tries to protect herself with when the Foot come after her to silence her.

[Ultimo Gallos]

1.Mirage-Loved it. Started reading them with issue 4 and finally last year managed to finish my run of them.
2.FoxKids cartoon-In many ways this followed lots of the stuff from the Mirage comics.
3.First movie-The only one of the films worth watching. But then it is average at best.
4.Archie comic series-Only have read maybe the first 3 years. But it was so much better than the crappy cartoon it was based on.
10000000000-The original cartoon. They took what was a great concept and turned it into a kiddified show made to sell toys. I can understand why people who were kids when this was airing would love it. But I was 14 or 15 when it started.

[Bub (BLM)]

1) 1990 Film
2) Mirage
3) Nickelodeon
4) 4Kids 2K3
5) Archie
6) IDW
7) Fred Wolf 1988
8) 2014 Film

Next Mutation and Image Comics are two versions I straight will not waste time on.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of the Image Turtles at all. Great artwork, but it was arguably the most grimdark Turtle canon (Raph getting horribly scarred, Robo-Donnie, etc).

[1 Free Moon-Down with Burger]

For as obviously influential the early Mirage stuff is. It's unreadable trash toward the end.

[Hit Girl]

1- The 1987 show
2- The first two movies
3- The Nick show


I haven't seen anything beyond that.

[Malcolm]

1 - The 2012 Nickelodeon show
2 - The live action movies
3 - The 1987 cartoon
4 - The 2003 cartoon by a hair thanks to some of the questionable voice acting(namely Splinter's voice and Karai's horribly fake accent), the really lame background music, UTROM SHREDDER, idiot Karai, and Fast Forward.
5. The 2014 movie.

[Bub (BLM)]

Okay, now that I'm at a PC and not my phone, I feel like I can elaborate on my original post.

1) 1990 Film - For me, this is the essential TMNT. They took the first few issues of Mirage, combined them with the Raphael and Leonardo one-shots, threw in some essentials from the cartoon series (pizza, reporter April) and the result was something so enjoyable that I still watch it every few months to this day. I still wish whiny parents hadn't derailed the direction of the second film, because I'd be really curious to see what could have been.

2) Mirage - Where it all began. I feel it's often discredited and looked down upon by people nostalgic for the old cartoon, but there's such a fun quality to that original run which ended with the "City at War" arc. The first issue is fairly gloomy as a Frank Miller parody, but the mood immediately shifts with issue 2 and the introduction of April, Baxter Stockman, and the mousers. I have so much fun re-reading the series to this day, and I own just about every reprinting that's come down the pike, including the amazing oversized hardcover collections released by IDW.

3) Nickelodeon - If the 1990 film was a perfect hybrid of all things Turtles from 1984-1990, this series is the perfect hybrid of all things Turtles from 1984-2012. They've made something that feels fresh and new for the franchise with the varying unique looks of the Turtles and giving it a true young teenage vibe, while still making something that feels like it was done out of an absolute love of the property. There are nods to Mirage, the live action films, the 1988 series, the original action figure line, IDW, you name it. This series has done for the Turtles what Batman: The Animated Series did for Batman.

4) 4Kids 2K3 - I never imagined I'd ever get to watch an animated adaptation of the Mirage series, so when this show launched in 2003 with Peter Laird calling the shots, I knew it was going to be something special. They did a commendable job adapting the comics for childrens programming, and some of their original ideas where downright bone-chilling and almost more dark that the comic had been. Particularly Baxter losing body parts episode by episode. Jesus.

5) Archie - Originally nothing more than direct adaptations of animated episodes, Archie really took off and became something special when they began telling their own original stories. I think many people may look at the art and think it's just a kids Turtle book, but there was some wonderful storytelling in the series, and quite frankly some stuff that left me unsettled as a young reader. I read it back for the first time as an adult last year, and it holds up so, so well.

6) IDW - I was lukewarm to this reboot at first, but early this year I bought all the trades that had been released thusfar at the behest of my local comic shop owner, and I'm glad I listened to him. Much like Nick is doing a fresh reboot that still respects the property, IDW is doing the same. It's a perfect book for people my age who grew up on the Turtles and enjoy good, adult storytelling.

7) Fred Wolf 1988 - The show that started the phenomenon. I adored this show as a kid, and it was the driving force in TurtleMania and for that I'll always be grateful it exists. That being said, I can't stand the nostalgia goggles that exist for this show. I understand loving something you grew up on, I grew up on it myself. However, I think oftentimes you'll see people online and in person trying to slam any version of TMNT that isn't this cartoon, and they'll never listen to reason. That frustration has sadly taken some of the shine off of the show for me. I will say that while the show itself is pretty bad, some of their ideas I'm incredibly happy to have because they're providing excellent working material for Nick and IDW.

8) 2014 Film - I have such a love/hate relationship with this thing. Originally, it was going to be a massive slap in the face to the franchise (confirmed in a recent interview with the cast of the sequel). With enough complaining, it began to resemble TMNT a bit more, although they still tried to run with a white rich guy as Shredder. Fortunately in the end, the fans won out and we got that overturned as well. The problem is, all the re-writes and re-shoots created a jumbled mess of a film with a ridiculously stupid origin for Splinter and the Turtles. All that complaining aside, the reason I still enjoy the movie for what it is is because they nailed the personalities and relationship between the four turtles. They're so much fun to watch interact with one another, and I can't wait to see more of that be the focus of the sequel.

[Sephiroth]

As unlikely as it is due to various copyright/licensing issues, Mr Knull would make a pretty good seasonal bad guy to give the story a break from Shredder.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Dec 13, 2015 18:48:47 GMT -5 Sephiroth said:

As unlikely as it is due to various copyright/licensing issues, Mr Knull would make a pretty good seasonal bad guy to give the story a break from Shredder.

Null was such a badass. I loved how he just got more blatantly demonic visually as the Archie series progressed.